Are any of the blades or tools in the metal shop good for cutting A2 or D2 tool steel? I was told the machine shop has an imposed hardness limit, but I am less familiar with the limitations of what’s present in the metal shop.
I’m looking to make some tool blades and will have round and bar stock.
Cheers,
-Jim
Plasma cutter will cut anything that can conducts electricity. How thick?
round stock 1/2-1" diameter, flat stock likely 1/4" thick.
Onl;y tool that can cut that is the abrasive cut-off tool in Metal shop. None of metal cutting blade saw can cut tool or hardened metals.
Any downsides of using plasma?
Messier cut. Both plasma and abrasive cut-ff saw will have heat affected zones.
That depends if it is hardened or annealed. If its hardened then the only thing that will likely cut it is the abrasive chop saw or plasma cutter as Luke mentioned. If you do cut it with the plasma, You will loose the hardness in the HAZ.
My understanding is that most tool steels are sold in the annealed state. HSS maybe one of the exceptions.
Oxy-acetylene would probably cut it too, wouldn’t it, but then we don’t have any available.
IIRC, the supplier I just talked with sells annealed sine it’s usually going to be fabbed into whatever the end need is for making parts.
I may just pay them the extra to cut it all down for me and not have to worry about it; at least for the first one until I confirm for subsequent orders.
If its annealed then you can cut it with most of the normal machines. The band saw would do just fine providing that you check the state to be 100%. We have hardness files to check if you want see the relative hardness.
As long as the harness is 55=< HRC then you can use the metal saws. If the spec sheet doesn’t say - then considering it’s tool steel assume it is higher.
If cutting with saw remember: let saw do the cutting, no more than 10 pounds of pressure and use the lube stick.
When we get more space, we may want to consider one of these. Although I expect it will experience a short violent life.
I would love to have that hardness tester at the space!
They really are not hard to use.
They are a really useful tool. They are not hard to use but very easy to abuse.
It would need to be secured so makers can’t “inspect it how it works” or just plain F around with it. While it poses no real threat of harm, except for the really creative, they are easy to damage. Would prefer it is RFID so last user is known when it shows up damaged from not following the procedure they can enjoy their purchase. This is a tool that is re-calibrated before use, it is a sensitive measuring tool and if not accurate then it is useless.
It must really be easy to use, since you were able to use it to test how hard it is to use.
~hardness tester joke